Wii’s Rock Band Drum Kit Unveiled

Wii owners (but not Wii60 owners mind you) have been looking forward to Rock Band since it was officially announced in January. Now that the June 22^nd release date is rapidly approaching, Harmonix has finally revealed its newest addition to the Rock Band peripheral family.
If you’re among the hundreds of thousands already playing Rock Band, then there’s little to get excited over with this “new and improved” drum kit. The first run of Rock Band drum kits for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had epic failures world-wide thanks to their flimsy peddles and loud, stiff pads. Harmonix has addressed these issues and are producing drums with a sturdier peddle spring (see picture below) and softer drum heads… for all systems.

That’s right, the Wii drums will have all of the standard innovations that already exist in the current production lines for the PS3 and 360. Don’t worry though, Harmonix is boasting a few other differences that are Wii-exclusive. As you can see, the kit is a tasteful white to mirror the console and it is completely wireless, via a Wavebird-esque dongle.

Okay, so the Wii’s hardware looks up to snuff, and even minimally nicer than the drum kits the rest of us have already beaten into the ground. But, given the fact that the Wii doesn’t have the processing power to handle all the game’s usual features, Harmonix has had to strip down the experience a bit. The most painful omission is that of the online options, downloading songs and rocking out with distant friends. In an attempt to make up for this, Harmonix has announced that there will be five “bonus tracks” for the Wii, but they haven’t announced any titles yet, or whether they will be Wii-exclusive or just rehashes of songs already available for download. Unless Stairway is on the lineup though, I have a feeling they won’t make much difference.
So kudos, Harmonix, for producing a solid bit of hardware, even though it’s probably not enough to make the Wii the console of choice for those who have the option to rock out on other console platforms.